What if, just for one weekend, we honored the unconditional love and unmatched bond between humans and dogs with a weekend unlike any other?
To celebrate the premiere of The Pack, Amazon Prime Video created the ultimate holiday for dogs and the people who love them: an extraordinary "Packed Weekend”, offering one-of-a-kind, pup-centric experiences. This global celebration invited everyone and their pets to experience pampering, exciting activities, and a way to help support charities.
While our overarching objective for the campaign was to build buzz and awareness for the release of The Pack, at their core our activations sought to create a global moment that celebrated the dog and human bond while putting dogs first so they could enjoy every aspect of the world with their humans. Due to COVID-19, original plans for large-scale experiential activations had to be rethought as smaller physical moments or digital activations.
This led us to develop COVID-safe activations and promotions that still allowed us to establish an emotional connection with our audience. The show’s broadly appealing topic (dogs) gave us the ability to work with brands across a variety of categories such as fitness, fashion, lifestyle, entertainment, home improvement, and food. All elements of the campaign leaned into dog-first messaging to ensure our four-legged friends were at the core of every activation.
The bond between human and dog was brought to life in 16 markets across the globe, with headline-generating consumer events and partnerships with international and domestic businesses and press. Brands were strategically activated through a two-pronged approach, creating a groundswell of conversation and meeting consumers where they are in a highly cluttered digital landscape.
To get things moving, we teamed up with UnderArmor for the “Pack Walk Challenge,” where participants could use fitness apps to participate in a global Pack Walk benefiting some incredible causes. Engaging over 90,000 participants, our global Pack raised funds for The American Heart Association, The Environmental Defense Fund and Best Friends Animal Society, in addition to Prime Video’s donation of $100,000.
Adding to the paw-some experiences throughout the world were incredible brand offerings, such as roundtrip tickets from Alaska Airlines for the “Pack Walk Challenge” sweepstakes winners to plan a future visit to one of the locations seen in the show. Homes.com also participated by offering users a “dog’s eye view” of the homebuying journey, including insights into how pet parents think about the importance of home.
Red Roof Inn, where pets always stay free, temporarily renamed itself as “Red Woof Inn” for the weekend, with special check-in gifts at 20 properties when guests stayed with thier pets in tow. The Bear & The Rat, a line of frozen yogurt for dogs, offered a discount on online sales during “Packed Weekend”. Saks Fifth Avenue created a virtual doggie boutique so pups everywhere could enjoy the luxe life.
Even three NFL superstars got in on the action, raising awareness for the “Packed Weekend” by giving a dog’s eye view into the lives of the football fan favorites, shown via social media.
A local paid media campaign spread awareness through on-air spot schedules as well as running their own sweepstakes for added exposure and participation and offering prizing provided by our partner brands.
The tactics we used for the campaign were: Partnerships, Custom Microsite Development, Paid Media, Publicity, Media Promotions, Custom Social Media Content and Out-of-Home.
Our campaign was up against a global pandemic, so our goal of uniting dog-lovers in the name of a fun reality show was an uphill battle. However, by engaging international and domestic businesses and press in 16 markets across the globe the "Packed Weekend” drove conversation about the show and the activations in an organic and meaningful way, on social media and beyond.
Each brand and business was provided with placement on an Amazon-linked website page, which gave them visibility alongside one of the biggest brands in the world (Amazon) and motivated their participation and promotion, ensuring mutual success.
This campaign did not have sales targets, but we did have targets for participation which were exceeded. Our goal was to get 20 national and at least 100 local brands and businesses across 10 global markets on board to participate in our "Packed Weekend" activities.
Overall, 274 brands and businesses with over 800 locations across the globe participated in the “Packed Weekend” by offering giveaways, discounts, free services and updating their brand materials to include dogs. Activations across the “Packed Weekend” generated over 400 media hits, 13M media impressions and $7.3M in media value. We also set a goal of at least 50,000 participants in our Pack Walk Challenge, and ended up with a total of over 90,000 participants.
